A Parental Guardian of the Ghostly Kind

My father died of cancer when I was just fifteen years old. It was a terrible and painful time for my mother and me as his illness had been short - less than nine months. He had gone into remission but suffered a set back one month later and never recovered. The months following his death are a blur but then strange things started to happen.

My father always sat in his recliner in the living room smoking and watching television. You could see the chair from the upstairs hall and one night, as I walking down that hall, I saw something that startled me! There in the chair was a gray figure of a man sitting in the chair the way my father used to - his arms resting on the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him with his feet crossed at the ankles on the ottoman. I threw on the lights and called for my mother but the shadow was gone. The next day my mother told me that a few days earlier she had been lying down when she felt something brush her cheek. She said it felt like a flutter or perhaps a kiss and it was cool. She was not afraid but felt comforted and thought it was Dad.

Nothing else happened for the next few months until summer. It was four thirty in the afternoon and Mom and I were home watching television when the garage door went up - on its own. The fact that we had an automatic garage door opener made the situation stranger and creepier. Mom & I looked at each in disbelief. This was the exact time my father used to come home from work. Mom calmly got up and closed the garage door. The next day, at four thirty, the same thing happened and a repeat performance was given one week later. Mom & I felt it was Dad trying to communicate with us. It was the last time we had a message through the garage door.

Flash forward ten years. I am now married with a house of my own when one night he returned. I woke up from a sound sleep at two thirty in the morning to find the gray figure of a man standing by my side of the bed. This time I pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes tight. The strangest part was that the "man' was about the same height as my father. It was the last time anything like this happened. It was as if my father visited me to see that I was okay and went on to another dimension.

I believe these events were real and not just a longing to see my father again. The fact that my mother had similar experiences confirms that his ghost was trying to reach us. I know he was not ready to die (who really is) and was maybe bound to the earth by a feeling of disbelief or unfinished business. I would like to think that he stuck around to make sure that I was safe and happy and once he knew that, he was free to move on. Where ever he is now - I hope he is happy and peace, especially because my mother joined him earlier this year after waiting thirty-one and a half years to really see him again.